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영어

Recently in September, 2015, the Japanese government revised the Worker Dispatch Act in order to deregulate the use of dispatched workers as one of its growth strategies. As the revision has implications for us discussing the revision of the Act on Dispatched Workers, this study purposed to introduce the background of the enactment and revisions of the Japan's Worker Dispatch Act and the major contents of this revision, and to find directions for the revision of the Korean Act on Dispatched Workers by comparing the laws of Korea and Japan. When the Worker Dispatch Act was enacted in Japan in 1985, it adopted the positive list method, which restricted subject jobs strictly in order to prevent the substitution of regular employees for dispatched workers in those days. Through the revision in 1999, however, it was replaced by the negative list method, which allowed the use of dispatched workers in all jobs except for some prohibited areas (port transport services, construction work, security services, medical related services, and manufacturing), and the revision in 2003 permitted the use of dispatched workers in manufacturing works. In this way, the the Japan's Worker Dispatch Act has been revised for facilitating the supply of workforce. With regard to the upper limit of the dispatch period, moreover, the law revised in 1999 divided jobs into general works (1 year) and 26 professional works (3 years by administrative guidance) in order to prevent encroachment on the long-term employment system of Japan. By the revision in 2003, furthermore, the upper limit of the dispatch period for general works was extended to 3 years, and the administrative guidance limiting the period to 3 years for professional works was abolished. In this way, from 1985 to 2003, the Worker Dispatch Act was revised for deregulating the use of dispatched workers in order to strengthen the supply-demand control function of the labor market. The revision in 2012 intensified regulations on the use of dispatched workers, but by the revision in 2015, the criteria for calculating the period of dispatch, which has been regulated strictly, were changed and, as a result, the Worker Dispatch Act was improved toward further deregulation. The main contents of the Worker Dispatch Act revised in 2015 include: ① the rationalization of regulation on dispatch period; ② centralization(unification) into a permit system; and ③ reinforcement of balanced treatment, career support, and measures of employment stability for dispatched workers. First, the Worker Dispatch Act set the upper limit of dispatch period to 3 years for both professional and general works. In addition, the base for calculating the period of dispatch was changed from ‘3 years per job’ to ‘3 years per person,’ and as a result, client business operators would be allowed to use dispatched staff indefinitely for a particular position as long as they change the worker in it every three years. In addition, the distinction between Specified Worker Dispatching Undertaking (Notification System) and General Worker Dispatching Undertaking (License System) was removed, and the license system was applied to all Worker Dispatching Undertaking as an effort to improve the integrity of Worker Dispatching Undertaking. Furthermore, the revised law introduced various measures for reinforcing balanced treatment, career management, and job security for dispatched workers. Summing up, the Japanese government liberalized the dispatch worker market for both creating jobs and improving employment stability and, at the same time, sought to improve dispatched workers’ environment thorough labor supervision and institutional support by relevant administrative authorities. This implies that the Korean Act on Dispatched Workers should also be revised in a way of deregulating the use of dispatched workers for more flexible labor market and, at the same time, to improve the quality of dispatched work and reinforce the protection of dispatched workers.